The U.S. economy grew in the first quarter -- but very, very, very slowly. Most economy watchers blame frigid winter weather for dampening forward progress but not everyone is convinced weather tells the whole story.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis' advance estimate of first quarter 2014 real gross domestic product shows output produced in the U.S. grew at a glacial 0.1% rate. This is growth relative to fourth quarter 2013, when real GDP increased 2.6%. Economists were anticipating growth around 1.1%.

"Real GDP growth was quite a bit weaker than already feeble expectations," wrote Guy Berger, U.S. economist at RBS, in a note on the results. "Q4’s GDP report was the inverse of today’s – it had a relatively strong headline, ho-hum details (today we got a weak headline, ho-hum details)."

Most of the weakness came from trade and inventories which subtracted 80 basis points and 60 basis points from overall GDP respectively. According to BEA, the slowing growth also reflected a downturn in nonresidential fixed investment growth, as well as lower state and local government spending.

Federal government spending, on the other hand, picked up 0.7% but that growth come off of a quarter than included the 16 day government shutdown and a 12.8% decline. To the extent GDP grew, BEA said it was a reflection of a decreased in imports and an increase in personal consumption.

Berger pointed out that if we subtract trade and inventories we get real sales to final domestic purchasers up 1.5%. This, he wrote, "is nothing to write homes about" but is in line with the prior quarter. PNC economists Stuart Hoffman and Gus Faucher pointed out in a note that, "First quarter growth was a definite disappointment, but it does not reflect the U.S. economy's true momentum. There was a big hit to growth from the weather, and the drags from inventories and trade will likely reverse in the second quarter."

Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research, agreed that the rest of the year will likely be stronger than Q1, but questioned how much weather weighed on trade. "Looking through the rest of the report we see the cold hand of winter," he wrote in an note, "although I am not sure to what extent the cold in the Midwest caused the level of exports to drop by $40.5 billion while imports only dropped $8.8 billion. Surely the supply chains weren’t frozen in only one direction."

Berger noted that the surprisingly strong growth in consumer spending reflected growth in household and utility services spending and health care spending. The first, he wrote, likely reflects "heating costs due to the frigid winter weather east of the Rocky Mountains – which added 0.7 percentage points to real GDP growth. In all likelihood, this factor will reverse in Q2 as the weather normalizes (i.e. utilities could be a drag on growth)."

The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite were all slightly in the red following the pre-market release. Improved economic data out since the quarter ended, however, has caused many people to minimize the weight they were placing on the figure even before it was released Wednesday morning.

BEA -- a division of the Department of Commerce -- will release its second Q1 GDP estimate on May 29.